DOI: 10.1590/1807-57622015.0450
University teachers’ development: an (im) possible task?
Maura Maria Morita Vasconcellos(a)
Mara Regina Lemes de Sordi(b)
(a) Departamento de Educação, Universidade Estadual de Londrina. Rodovia Celso Garcia Cid, Pr 445 km 380,
Campus Universitário. Londrina, PR, Brasil. 86057-970. mauramorita@uel.br
(b) Departamento de Estudos e Práticas Culturais, Faculdade de Educação, Universidade Estadual de
Campinas. Campinas, SP, Brasil. maradesordi@uol.com.br
This paper originated from a post-doctoral research on institutional university teachers’
development programs. Its objective is to question formative actions for higher education
teaching at public universities, identifying the risks, tensions and challenges faced by these
institutionalized programs. During this descriptive - exploratory study, programs coordinators
were consulted through a face-to-face interview, while recognized researchers from the
university teaching development area were interviewed via email. The analysis used was based
on the hermeneutics - dialectics method. A few challenges surfaced: the constant struggle
resisting regulatory policies directed against an education that aims at social quality; the
sustainability of institutional policies; the valorization of university teaching development
programs regulated by ethical and political principles related to human emancipation; and, as a
strategy against hegemonic status, the construction of articulation networks among existing
programs.
Introduction
We all know that teaching is not an easy profession. It was once called
“impossible occupation” when “[…] the teaching conditions are evoked: […] social
circumstances, dropouts, refusals and the complexity of the beliefs that are tackled”1
(p. 150). Such arguments lead to Freud who, quoted by Cifali1, would have said: It
seems, however, that analysis might be the third of such ‘impossible’ professions, in
which we can be sure, right from the beginning, that we will have insufficient success.
The other two (occupations), which have been known for much more time, are
educating and governing1 (p. 152).
This statement leads us to reflect on the contradictions experienced by teacher
developers. If teaching seems to be “an impossible occupation”, what can we say about
the task of developing teachers? “Impossible” refers to the fact that, in our profession,
we do not have a scientific guarantee that determines each one of our acts, because
teaching demands revisiting the relationship between theory and its applications,
practice and its pitfalls, as we oscillate between being theoretical or practical. We
always face uncertainty, chance and complexity, mainly because the result
fundamentally depends on the other’s adherence and, due to their singularity, they can
frustrate our plans.
This essay derives from the post-doctoral research completed in 2015 about
the constitution of institutionalized teacher development programs. Its aim was to
study formative actions for higher education teaching carried out at public universities.
Two institutions representing the State of Paraná (Southern Brazil) and the State of São
Paulo (Southeastern Brazil) were investigated: Universidade Federal do Paraná2 - UFPR
and Universidade Estadual de Campinas3 - UNICAMP.
The choice of the programs met some previous criteria. First, we decided to
investigate public universities, the space where both the researcher and her supervisor
work, because it is the type of university that we defend and it is the one that suffers
the greatest impact of public education policies triggered by governmental decisions
and duly structured. The reason is that there are initiatives and movements headed
towards the valorization of teaching and undergraduate programs in many institutions,
but they have not reached the status of being recognized or officially institutionalized
as development programs yet. Two States and two Programs that represent them were
selected: State of Paraná (because it is the researcher’s State) and State of São Paulo
(because it is the State where the post-doctoral study was developed).
In an exploratory-descriptive study, the two coordinators (referred to as C) of
the development programs of the respective institutions were consulted, as well as ten
renowned researchers in the area of university pedagogy (referred to as R). The first
were consulted through a face-to-face interview and the latter, through an interview
sent by e-mail. We believe that consulting renowned researchers in the area of
university pedagogy in Brazil would be very important because the expression of their
perspectives could complement information and promote a better understanding of
the development proposals. The researchers were selected according to the criterion of
relevant academic history, bibliographic production and, above all, their struggle in the
complex field of university teachers’ pedagogic development.
Our intention was neither to compare the two development programs nor to
analyze their structure and presuppositions; rather, the idea was to question central
issues, highlighting weaknesses, risks, tensions and also possibilities, advances,
struggles and challenges that could be generalized in order to promote a reflection on
programs of this nature. In fact, the two programs served as reference and motive for a
more political discussion about the theme. For data interpretation, we employed the
hermeneutic-dialectical method, as “[…] while hermeneutics emphasizes the meaning
of what is consensual, of mediation, agreement and unit of meaning, dialectics focuses
on difference, contrast, dissension, rupture of meaning and, therefore, criticism” 4 (p.
90).
This text is structured around three axes: the higher education scenario and the
university’s commitment to teacher development; development programs as a “place”
of valorization of university teaching; and risks, tensions and challenges faced by
The higher education scenario and the university’s commitment to teacher
development
Nowadays, higher education is especially affected by economic and political
crises and crises of meanings and values, due to its responsibility for producing and
disseminating knowledge that is useful to the development of the global economy,
which is imposed by the production system. This interferes in the teachers’ work and
in the meanings of the development process. However, Dias Sobrinho5 explains that,
with this, the university loses privileges related to knowledge and education and
receives new attributions. Frequently, two elements coexist in the same institution:
university tradition and new trends and realities.
According to Santos6,
In the last twenty years, the university has suffered an erosion in its
hegemony that may be irreparable. This has been caused by the
transformations undergone by knowledge production, with the
ongoing transition from conventional university knowledge to
pluriversity knowledge, which is transdisciplinary, contextualized, and
interactive. Furthermore, pluriversity knowledge is produced,
distributed and consumed through the new communication and
information technologies, which have changed the relationships
between knowledge and information, and also between education and
citizenship. (p. 63-64).
The university’s historical mission is to form people who have knowledge and
values and are capable of contributing to the humanity construction process,
prioritizing the overcoming of poverty, violence, injustice and social inequality5.
However, according to the author, the universities are changing according to values
that are very distant from those that they had when they were created. They have
educational company focusing on utilities. Although culture, ethics, esthetics and
social values are present in university discourses and documents, they remain in the
abstract level. About the education process that has been taking place at universities,
Bento7 asks: “What concepts and notions of Development […], Education, Man, Society
and University are transmitted to students? What degree of ethical uneasiness
concerning the course of this world has been fostered? What attachment to culture and
philosophy is cultivated in the majority of the postgraduate programs?” (p. 704).
We believe that the university plays a central role in the construction of the
knowledge society and, due to this,
[...] it cannot deny its essentially public nature, that is, concerned
about the elevation of the entire human society. In this perspective,
only the institution that produces and disseminates knowledge as a
social right and public good is worthy of calling itself a university, that
is, as something essential and fundamental to the education of
subjects who are capable of participating of society creatively and
critically.5 (p. 657)
Teacher development can play a central role when we reflect on the need of
changing the course of the public university. In this perspective, Chauí8 highlights
some points to change the university based on education: understanding higher
education as a citizen’s right; defending the public university, refusing privatization
and breaking the model proposed by the World Bank; defining university autonomy as
the right to define its education, teaching and research norms and to self-determine
the academic policies; revalorizing teaching, which has been losing prestige and has
been neglected due to “productivity evaluation”, in which the quantitative aspect
predominates.
The focus on academic productivity is a consequence of the mercantilist
policies that conceive education as a commodity. This condition affects mainly
teachers who work in postgraduate programs, subject to the evaluative control of
for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel) and its evaluative dynamics, which
is called Coleta Capes (Capes Collection), and also of Conselho Nacional de
Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq – National Council for Scientific and
Technological Development) through, for example, the Lattes Curriculum9. These
forms of control have contributed to reduce the prestige of teachers’ work in
undergraduate programs, as this work has almost no repercussion on the evaluation of
postgraduate programs. Therefore, these regulation policies induce to the neglect of
what should be the noble function of an education institution.
In the scenario of changes in paradigms that have been occurring in recent
decades, the importance of the pedagogic development of university teachers
increases. This development must be technically dense, but it must also have social
pertinence. Thus, it is recognized that a solid education in a specific area of knowledge
is not sufficient to the exercise of teaching, which adds complexity to development
programs.
Development programs as a “place” of valorization of university teaching
We use the term place here in the sense attributed by Cunha10, who explains
the conception of place in its interface with the expressions space and territory.
According to this author, “[...] it is possible to realize the relationship among space,
place and territory. A space becomes a place when the subjects who use it attribute
meanings to it. A place becomes a territory when the values and power devices of
those who attribute the meanings are revealed”10 (185).
In this perspective, “when we occupy places, we are making choices that will fill
the spaces and will transform them into territories"10 (p.185). The institutionalized
development programs can become a “place” for the university teachers’ development
if the spaces destined to them acquire meaning and recognition in the university
community.
By the legal prerogatives the university has, it is traditionally identified as a
and to continuing education research. The university’s space may shelter the
possibility of existence of development programs, but this does not guarantee their
concretization. Cunha10 warns us that the fact that the university is an education space
does not mean that it is an education place; what transforms a space into a place is the
human dimension, when it attributes meanings and recognizes the legitimacy of this
space. “When we say ‘this is the place of’, we extrapolate the condition of space and
attribute a cultural and subjective meaning that is typical of the exercise of such
location”10 (p. 184).
Sometimes, the spaces for university teachers’ development are not occupied
and, thus, do not become places, as “the place represents the occupation of the space
by the people who attribute meaning to it and legitimate its condition”10 (p.184).
Nevertheless, according to one of the consulted researchers, “[...] in recent years, there
have been research and many studies that aimed to discuss the question of teaching in
the university context. I believe this is a significant advance in the search for the
institutionalization, in the university, of a “place” for teacher development” (R4).
Teaching involves specific problems: the didactic transposition of specific
knowledge, the organization of activities that facilitate understanding and knowledge
transfer, the link between theory and practice, and the evaluation of the learning
process. All this complex weave of functions requires a specific education that is
different from the basic education that gives legitimacy to the university teacher11.
Our data reveal that the valorization of teaching is an emerging concern. This
concern is revealed in the constitution of institutional organs/sectors and programs
developed for this purpose. Even so, such initiatives are still rare and the situation in
Brazil contrasts with the international experience, showing that there is still much to
be done regarding the creation of spaces to support the teacher’s action in the
university. In the international context, this concern has been explicit for much more
time and has already been transformed into concrete actions at the best universities in
international rankings.
The University of Harvard, for example, internationally recognized for its
about the continuous improvement in the education of its students and about the
quality of its teaching and learning. It performed, in recent years, a large curriculum
reform that has promoted a new and broad understanding of what it means to be
educated in the 21st century. This large curriculum reform was based on the need to
think about what was taught to students, how it was taught, and on the recognition
that the curriculum, the program and the pedagogic form can always be improved.12
It is important to mention relevant experiences that have already been carried
out in our context. At Universidade de São Paulo – USP, it was headed by Selma Garrido
Pimenta when she was the Pro-Rector for Undergraduate Studies. Significant studies
have been developed in the field of university pedagogy and they have become
exemplary, disseminating new institutional experiences. At Universidade de Campinas
- UNICAMP, it is not the first time that the concern about teacher development arises.
According to one of the researchers (R9), the Projeto de Capacitação Docente (PECD –
Teacher Qualification Project), developed in the 1990s and beginning of the 2000s,
was very successful, but ended up being extinguished due to changes that occurred in
the institution.
In recent years, there has been an ongoing process, although not in a
generalized way, that intends to highlight teaching and the teachers’ work, heading,
therefore, towards a greater valorization of teachers and teaching, even though it goes
against the grain. However, Cunha13 (p. 22) argues that, even with the growth of the
idea that pedagogic development is necessary for a more adequate exercise of
university teaching, “it is possible to notice that institutions and public policies neglect
the professionalization movement of higher education teaching”.
The valorization of teaching is related to institutionalized development
processes that foster self-development based on reflections on one’s own work.
However, according to Donato10, it is necessary to have time and a place to perform
this work about oneself. That is why it is important that the institution is involved in
and committed to this development. In this sense, Franco14 (p.17) states that: “[...] the
construction of pedagogic knowledge is necessarily related to the conditions of the
offer so that they can work collectively and build or participate in the
political-institutional project?”.
One of the consulted researchers celebrates the current interest in teacher
development at universities. This is his opinion about it:
In fact, [...] the theme of the teacher’s pedagogic development at university used
to be ignored and disregarded. There were no studies about the theme nor
publications in journals or books discussing the problem. Today, not only do we
have countless studies about the matter, countless papers in journals and a rich
and diverse bibliography, but we also have initiatives from many higher
education institutions to create and develop activities and services that support
teacher development and are adequate to the teachers’ context and needs (R8).
The two universities that participated in this research have development
programs that, supported by the institution, are currently building a teacher
valorization culture, developing projects and actions targeted at this objective.
Universidade Estadual de Campinas - UNICAMP3 has the Espaço de Apoio ao Ensino e
Aprendizagem15 (EA2 – Space to Support Teaching and Learning), which is structured
in the form of projects and aims to
[...] promote actions with the purpose of enhancing
undergraduate teaching at UNICAMP’s units, providing technical
resources and theoretical tools, and creating forums and
opportunities to discuss the teaching/learning process, so as to
contribute to its teachers’ professional development and to
students’ education3 (p. 1).
At EA2, projects of many types and actions are developed. They encompass
diverse work areas and demonstrate that teacher development is not tackled in an
isolated or specific way. We highlight, here, the following projects: Rodas de Conversa
(University Teaching Improvement Program) and Programa Acolhimento de Novos
Docentes (Program to Receive New Teachers). Together with the other projects, they
provide the university’s teachers with opportunities to reflect on their practices
supported by theoretical frameworks. We would also like to highlight the democratic
way in which the actions are conducted, always taking into account the leading role of
the actors involved.
The program Rodas de Conversa (Conversation Circles) aims to promote greater
interaction and cooperation between EA2 and course coordinations, in light of its
fundamental objective: the improvement in undergraduate teaching at UNICAMP. The
idea is to foster a close cooperation between EA2 and the course coordinations – seen
in an amplified way as coordinations, undergraduate committees and/or structuring
teacher nuclei.
Some of the proposed actions are:
- Visit and talk to coordinators to better understand the different
programs and prospect possible actions that EA2 could perform.
- Promote, in the sphere of EA2, broader discussions about the quality
of undergraduate teaching that is desired at UNICAMP. These
discussions can involve themes like organization of the pedagogic
work, definition of teaching/learning objectives, organization of
teaching contents, teaching methodologies at the university and the
issue of the evaluation process of undergraduate teaching.
- Organize initiatives for the exchange of experiences among
coordinators.
- Create a space to support the coordinators that enables them to face
a broad range of conceptual, instrumental and infrastructure issues,
inherent in academic and pedagogic management.15
The Programa Aprimoramento da Docência Universitária (University Teaching
Improvement Program) aims to perform actions with the coordinators of
teachers, with the purpose of improving the conditions of undergraduate teaching. The
main actions are:
Short-duration courses, workshops, seminars and conferences that
help teachers to tackle didactic-pedagogic issues and contribute to
improve the teaching strategies that have been adopted. Specific
themes can be approached, like the Prezi program, the proposal of
Evidence-Based Learning, teaching in specific areas, teaching and
affectivity, utilization of the clicker, among others.15
The Programa Acolhimento dos Novos Docentes (Program to Receive New
Teachers) aims to: collaborate in the process of new teachers’ adaptation to UNICAMP;
assist the new teachers in the process of planning teaching activities; and monitor and
assist new teachers during the first semester of academic work15.
To perform this work, the strategy was to form a group with professionals from
the area of Education, from specific areas and from the university’s Administration to
develop work divided into two stages: the first lasts 30 hours and involves the new
teachers with the team in charge; in the second stage, there are fortnightly meetings
between the new teachers and the team’s members, aiming to perform experience
exchange, analysis of problems, theoretical study and others15.
At the Federal University of Paraná - UFPR2, the Coordenação de Políticas de
Formação de Professores (COPEFOR – Coordination of Teacher Development Policies),
which belongs to the Pró-Reitoria de Graduação e Educação Profissional (PROGRAD –
Pro-rectorate for Undergraduate Programs and Professional Development), is
responsible for articulating the teacher development actions that are promoted by
UFPR. On COPEFOR’s initiative, the institution approved a resolution that institutes and
regulates the Continuing Development Program for Teachers at UFPR. The program is
targeted at the set of teachers of UFPR, especially at teachers on probation and
teachers who wish to have pedagogic recycling. Its proposal is to provide continuing
Ever since it was created, COPEFOR has promoted many qualification courses,
targeted exclusively at UFPR’s faculty. The courses approached, among other themes,
educational paradigms, teaching and the national reality, higher education policies and
legislation, the National Curriculum Guidelines, classroom management, and
evaluation. Pedagogic workshops have been offered to many sectors, as well as
seminars and distance courses.
Some of the activities developed by COPEFOR from 2011 to 2014 were lectures,
seminars and workshops focusing on the discussion of pedagogic practice in higher
education teaching. Specific demands promoted pedagogic workshops to the sectors
of Agrarian Sciences and Health, a course aiming at the development of the
nurse-teacher, and technological tools to the teaching of Veterinary Medicine. A distance
course on higher education methodology lasting 90 hours and offered regularly in
partnership with the Coordenação de Integração de Políticas de Educação a Distância
(CIPEAD - Coordination of Distance Education Policies Integration) of UFPR aims to
improve techniques to exercise university teaching.
The main point of this Program is the concretization of an institutional policy in
which three points are given for career development to teachers who attend 100 hours
of the Continuing Development Programs promoted by COPEFOR. To teachers on
probation, participation is obligatory2.
The two programs represent the movement of valorization of university
teaching and the recognition of the need for specific development to exercise it. Both
programs were created and institutionalized recently: EA2 in 2010 and COPEFOR in
2012, and pursue similar objectives related to the promotion of pedagogic
development and enhancement, aiming at the valorization of teaching and the
improvement in undergraduate teaching. The development programs represent, “[...]
undoubtedly, advances in the valorization of teaching in higher education, as they view
such development as a fundamental theme that needs to be tackled and assumed by
Although many initiatives contribute to the construction of
“institutionalized teacher development scenarios”, as there are
programs that are included in teacher development policies of the
Pro-rectorates for Undergraduate Programs, there is still much fragility
regarding the effective recognition of such policies and programs in
the university context. I believe that this is related to the very “place”
that undergraduate teaching occupies today in the universities when
compared to the “place” of research. This has been broadly
approached in the literature (R1).
It is possible that the development programs are becoming development places
because they perform actions that intermediate meanings with the subjects that are
undergoing the process, taking into account “[…] the power relations that are
established in the development space-place relationship”14 (p. 185). At university,
there is the coexistence of forces that either adhere to or resist the regulatory
processes of the educational policies. To be constituted, the programs face risks,
tensions and challenges deriving from the field of permanent struggle among
contradictory logics inside the institutions themselves.
Risks, tensions and challenges faced by development programs
Teaching and research institutions, especially public universities, suffer the
impacts of the neoliberal restructuring, with threats to their autonomy and knowledge
policy, not to mention the precarization of working conditions. If, on the one hand, the
desire is to resist this state of things, on the other hand there are difficulties in relation
to limitations of the time that should be spent with development activities that would
subsidize more consistent postures, heading towards a more consequent teaching, in
tune with the challenges of education in the 21st century.
A relevant aspect refers to institutional policies for the hiring of teachers, as
teaching grants access to the university; it is not just an activity like the others. This is
activity is not considered relevant when the candidate is analyzed; the priority is the
research interface. In consonance with the position assumed by program coordinators,
another issue raised by one of the researchers is that the development programs need
to be strongly supported by the institution in order to break an institutional culture
that does not valorize this development. And he adds: “[...] if the institution as a whole
does not embrace the programs [...], the tendency is that the program does not last
more than one or two semesters, provides certificates for a few teachers that
participated in it to enhance their careers and disappears (R3)”.
The risk of developing actions that are not related to the teachers’ context and
reality is highlighted by this researcher when he states that “the higher education
institutions must invest in development processes that have practice and the teachers’
context as reference. Specific actions that are external to the teachers’ authorship
condition are of little use” (R7). Another difficulty pointed by the coordinators is that
adherence to courses and activities cannot be obligatory because it is contradictory to
bet on accountability and autonomy and, at the same time, summon teachers through
authoritarian measures. Voluntary adherence is essential to their personal involvement
and commitment to their own development.
The universities “[...] experience the contradictions that result from the battle
between the poles of regulation and emancipation”16 (p. 57). Inside them, there are
ambiguities, contradictions, uncertainties, adherences and resistance to regulatory
policies, as diverse conceptions of society, university and teaching struggle for power
inside educational institutions. In light of these considerations, it is necessary to pay
attention to the fact that the university suffers the impact of the educational policies
that are in force, that it is hostage to other logics, and that working in favor of
teaching and teacher development in a neoliberal regulatory system may mean, among
other actions, a counter-regulation movement, as
The neoliberal policies use and abuse regulation. […]
Counter-regulation is a propositional resistance that creates commitments
resist regulation (counter-regulation) and, whenever possible, advance
both in its organization and in the provision of services that have the
highest possible quality (precisely to the individuals who have more
needs), guided by the summons of all persons to the social
transformation process17 (p. 912).
We believe that it is possible to view the institutionalized programs that support
teaching as a counter-regulation alternative. This involves not only the defense of the
creation of development spaces/places, but a struggle so that their aims overcome the
pitfalls of neo-technicism.
Regarding this risk, we highlight the warning of this researcher, who states:
It is necessary to develop, in teachers, the importance of clearly
understanding the educational intentions, which are branched in
objectives of several dimensions. Means and ends must be
experienced always. The use of new techniques is exciting at first, but
if this is not supported by a broader proposal, after the initial
enthusiasm ends, everything goes back to the previous situation.
Technique is very important, but by itself, it is worth nothing (R6).
The regulatory control of higher education includes the evaluation of teachers
by means of the quantification of their publications. Concerning this, a researcher
argues:
Another important aspect in the university context is the dilemma of
seeing academic production be used wrongly to measure the quality of
the university teacher, as quantity has been prioritized to the
detriment of quality. This has been one of the challenges: producing
research studies with quality without being carried away by the forces
Another great challenge that emerges from the considerations both of the
coordinators and of the researchers consulted in this study is obtaining the academic
community’s recognition of the relevance and legitimacy of the programs. This
concern is justified because
Although many initiatives contribute to the construction of
institutionalized development scenarios, as there are programs that
are included in teacher development policies of the Pro-rectorates
for Undergraduate Programs, there is still much fragility regarding
the effective recognition of such policies and programs in the
university context […] (R1).
This fragility is certainly caused by complex issues that include the low prestige
of teaching, which derives from the crystallized institutional culture, as we have
mentioned above, and also from the difficulty in articulating teaching, research and
extension. To Pimenta and Almeida18,a great challenge to the university and,
consequently, to teacher development programs, is reaching the mass of teachers who
do not feel the need for professional qualification targeted at the action of teaching.
One of the researchers recognizes that curriculum change is a great challenge
to today’s university (R8). In this context, the valorization of undergraduate teaching is
implicit, as this coordinator proposes (C2): “I think that the great challenge is this: to
show to this teacher that the university does not exist without undergraduate
teaching”. This is not about having an idealistic view according to which an
institutional program will solve all problems; rather, it is a line of thought that
perceives the situation by means of a macro movement that discusses the
precarization of teachers’ work in undergraduate programs.
Another concern that was manifested by both the coordinators and consulted
researchers regards the continuity of a work that cannot depend exclusively on specific
people who are embracing the cause at the moment. Therefore, the challenges to the
programs are many, of many types. In the macro level, in issues related to educational
are not compatible with the idea of an emancipatory teacher and student education.
This scenario, however, does not prevent the struggle and resistance of many
individuals who believe that education must focus on social quality and be aligned with
the formation of critical subjects committed to the construction of a fairer society.
The social quality to which we refer is based on the view of education as social
practice and political act. It is different from the view that predominates in the
productive sectors because it encompasses “historical-culture promotion and update,
in terms of a solid, critical, ethical and supportive education, articulated with public
policies of social inclusion and rescue”19 (p. 211). This assumption implies evaluating
the multiple determinations that affect teaching conditions in institutions, rather than
using only quantitative data based on the productive perspective.
In the institutional level, searching for the recognition and consolidation of
development programs is a challenge, as are the proposition and implementation of
institutional policies that bring changes and adjustments in order to valorize teacher
development. Pimenta and Almeida18 (p. 30) argue “[...] in favor of a real valorization of
the effort to make institutional teacher development policies that are stable and
permanent, aiming at the improvement in the teaching activity [...].”
With regard to the level of teaching and of subjects’ daily practices, it is
challenging to promote actions that stimulate the development of a new academic
mentality in which teaching recovers its value and is able to translate these new
postures. Another aspect that is related to this is the reconstruction of curricula
according to perspectives that allow the construction and consolidation of a university
pedagogy based on ethical and political principles of human emancipation.
It is clear that, so that teacher development programs are consolidated and
achieve the real possibility of changing crystallized institutional cultures, they must be
transformed into institutional policies, even if, to achieve this, they have to face
successive struggles in diverse fields. Perhaps, in the institutional level, this is the
most urgent challenge to be faced, although the levels of challenges raised in this
study are imbricated in a large and complex reality network in which part and whole do
Furthermore, we would like to highlight a challenge that has been proposed
whose process needs to be triggered: the construction of articulation networks among
the pedagogic support programs that already exist. Expanding the collective
dimension of teacher development, the creation of networks that
interconnect/articulate existing development programs was suggested by one of the
researchers (R5) and was well received by the coordinators. This would be an important
step that would enable knowledge production, support and experience exchange
among participants. In the field of university pedagogy, we can cite RIES - Rede Sul
Brasileira de Investigadores da Educação Superior (Southern Brazilian Network of
Higher Education Investigators), which is formed by institutions located at the State of
Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS, UFRGS, UFSM and UNISINOS) and involves many higher
education institutions outside Brazil, in South America.
In favor of the creation of networks among institutions, Luz and Balzan20 argue:
It is known that past and ongoing experiences have not been
sufficiently approached and investigated. Therefore, it is necessary
that a set of higher education institutions focuses on their own
experiences as the object of analysis, not only to identify positive
aspects and weaknesses in the teaching field, but so that everybody
could know and grow with the socialization of the results. Thus, a
possible regional, state and national identity concerning teacher
development would be identified and fostered (p.35).
In view of the complexity of the problems in higher education, therefore, it is
high time that the programs associated with one another in networks, enabling a joint
weaving that would help to multiply effects, discover alliances and make development
policies.
In our perspective, the universities that have decided to institute development
programs, like UNICAMP and UFPR, have undoubtedly taken an objective and concrete
step towards the valorization of teaching and of the university teacher’s pedagogic
development. This happens despite the fact that they are walking an adverse terrain,
as in the university there are forces that adhere to or resist the regulatory processes of
the educational policies that are in force. However, we would like to highlight that,
after this step has been taken, it is necessary to participate in the struggle for a type of
development that takes into account the field of struggles among contradictory forces,
promoting emancipatory education and social quality as the contours of the
institutionalized programs.
When we assume this historical project, we emphasize what we consider to be
the main challenges to be faced by development programs: the constant struggle to
resist the regulatory policies that go in the opposite direction of an education that
aims at social quality; the concretization of institutional policies that ensure the
consolidation and continuity of such programs, independently of the actors that
currently defend and structure them; and the valorization of a pedagogic development
for university teachers based on ethical and political principles of human
emancipation. One strategy that we must prioritize to face the challenges mentioned
here is the construction of articulation networks among existing programs, in order to
promote, in addition to exchanges of experiences, collaborative learning and shared
development that is characterized by the strengthening of groups and constitution of
institutional policies.
We consider that development programs are formative spaces that are
becoming development places and, as we search for the legal and institutional
contribution to sustain their proposals and actions, we will be creating alternatives that
can transform them into territories. We believe that the task of developing university
teachers cannot be postponed; otherwise, we will be responsible for the inclusion, in
the labor world, of professionals who are not capable of making critical readings and
of assuming their portion of responsibility for the construction of a fair and equitable
All those who are bravely willing to embrace this complex and hard task of
thinking and working in favor of the university teacher’s development within the
adverse context of the contemporary university come across many challenges, but
facing them is what allows us to create alternatives against hegemonic trends. We
agree with Cifali1 (p.150) when she states that facing challenges is an opportunity to
go beyond, to situate ourselves between “nothing is impossible”, which would mean
our omnipotence, and “nothing is possible”, which underlines our impotence. In spite
of risks, tensions, advances and setbacks, we believe that the task of developing
university teachers is possible and, in the midst of the dialectic processes of reality, it
is already being carried out by those who believe in high-quality teaching.
Collaborators
The authors worked together in all the stages of the production of the manuscript.
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